Article Title

Authors

Author Biography

Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr., is a former intelligence officer with the Defense
Intelligence Agency and a retired Marine who has lived and worked in
Korea. He received his Ph.D. from the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and currently serves as Professor of International Relations at the U.S.
Marine Corps Command and Staff College. In addition to being author of
Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea (Potomac Books,
2007) he has written nearly two dozen articles dealing with Korean security
issues in peer-reviewed journals to include the Korea Observer, the
International Journal of Korean Studies, Comparative Strategy, Pacific
Focus, the Air and Space Power Journal, the East Asian Review, and the
International Journal of Korean Unification Studies. He is the author of
the forthcoming book, Defiant Failed State: The North Korean Threat to
International Security, (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2010, forthcoming).

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.3.2.5

Subject Area Keywords

Abstract

The DPRK's (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea) support for terrorism began as an ideologically-based policy financed by the Soviet Union that eventually led to a policy designed to put money into the coffers of the elite in Pyongyang—in short, a "proliferation for hire" policy. This article articulates a brief history of the North Korean regime, the rise to power of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, and North Korea's persistent support to terrorist groups around the globe.